Tchaikovsky: Yevgeny Onegin
(St Petersburg, 1984)

Cast: Sergei Leiferkus (Onegin), Tatiana Novikova (Tatyana), Yuri Marusin (Lensky), Larissa Diadkova (Olga), Nikolai Okhotnikov (Gremin); Mariinsky (Kirov) Opera, Yuri Temirkanov (conductor), other contributors unidentified.

Recorded at the Mariinsky Theater (Kirov Opera), St Petersburg, 1984

Issued on DVD by Kultur [D1165, NTSC/all regions, menu in English, subtitles in English]

Technical details
Aspect ratio 4:3
Sound PCM Stereo ('Dolby 2.0')

Running Time 155 minutes

Sung in Russian

The absence of good video recordings of this masterpiece is hard to explain. It makes one anticipate a new release with so stellar a cast eagerly. Unfortunately, except for excellent singing, this release does not fill the bill.

Picture and sound are dated more severely than the year (1984) suggests. Video is overprocessed, introducing fringing and exposing the crudity of the highly conventional sets. The audio is otherwise acceptable but the gain was ridden - volume altered arbitrarily during the performance. Acting varies widely, from the women's persuasive performances to Leiferkus posing awkwardly. Gergiev's conducting is not overly fast but it is inflexible and the singing suffers. Production flaws are numerous and diverting: Lensky's second announces his commitment to the formalities of dueling, then violates them wholesale.

Kultur's packaging is worse than usual. Unless one reads Cyrillic, the only indication of even the conductor's identity is the image of him at work. To tell the recording date, one must wait for closing credits and recognize with relief the only non-Cyrillic characters offered. Chapter stops are seen in translation on the screen and in the synopsis, but only in transliterated Russian on the one-sheet insert. Subtitles are accurate but intrusive. The SMPTE code is visible at the top of the screen. The list goes on.

A bit of effort from Kultur in producing this DVD would have given us a well-sung if uninspiring recording. As issued, it deserves spot-checking but little more.
 
Related website:
Kultur Video www.kultur.com
 
Michael Richter, 5 August 2005
mrichter@cpl.net
 
See also Michael Richter's Introduction to the DVD, for a list of other reviews see the DVD Project page.